Sunday, November 30, 2008

Miss P holding Mr M - love that expression. "This is what we've been waiting for???" I have a picture like that of A holding L for the first time too!

How on earth did it get to be November 30?? It seems like we just moved here -not that we've been here 5 months!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. 8 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs! More food than we could eat and everyone enjoying the kids.

J2 was playing with Miss P and Miss P's new stuffed dog. J2 posed the dog head back and howled like a coyote and Miss P loved it. Well, soon all 8 adults (?) were giggling and howling too. It may be a new Thanksgiving tradition!!

I have not been quilting enough and now I have a list of projects to finish before Christmas! Darn-it! A Thimbleberries panel to quilt for my mom; a big girl quilt for Miss P and a Christmas stocking for Mr M. Oh, and a bunch of Christmas post cards, and some small presents for quilting friends ... oops - this is bad - even for me! Gotta run and get to sewing!!

Remember that old joke where the man is walking around a store with a crying baby - he's saying, "That's okay, Jim, we're almost done here. It's be alright, Jim. Just a little while longer, Jim" A lady came up and complimented him - "how calm you are. You're very good with baby Jim." He said, "Lady, I'm Jim!!!"

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Or Mr Megaphone as we like to call him! He was born Tuesday, Nov 18, at 5:19 pm. Weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great - especially in the middle of the night when Mr M prefers to party!

Did you know they send them home when they are 24 hours old!! By the next generation - it's going to be outpatient birth! Mr M has two speeds - asleep and content and awake and 'not so content'. Great lungs - I think he could have awakened the whole neighborhood last night!

Here's what this morning brought - our PJ picture. PS - Miss P hasn't cuddled during her 'hot baba' for ages - it felt great. We're here til the weekend and then back up early next week to help get ready for Thanksgiving. I always forget they come this little!!! Oh, yes - Nana's having fun!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Blogger is doing weird things with the photos today - but at least they're showing up!

Here is the baby quilt for grandbaby coming this month. It's the Yellow Brick Road pattern by Atkinson Designs. Hmmm - I'll have to put my quilt holder thru more training to get him to hold it straight!!! In the close-up I tried to show the patriot print I used on the back.

I quilted 5 pointed stars in each block - that's a recurring theme for my daughter's quilts and used my favorite border treatment. It will be labeled when we know the name and the date - I'm so relieved! I can actually take it with me when we get the 'baby call'!

Next up - big girl bed quilt for Miss P. She was a pirate for Halloween - she wore her eyepatch like a necklace because we were NOT putting it over her eye! And here's a picture of her zooming by on her train the day after Halloween. Who can resist that smile!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Well, Friday the doctor said there was a 33% chance our new grandbaby could come this week. Now my DD doesn't agree but I think that 9 months went really FAST! The winning pattern is: Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs! I couldn't decide what to make this baby - my daughter wanted baby blue and brown. I love blue and brown together [smile] but not baby blue! Once I 'lightened' up the brown I could see a glimmer of hope that this wouldn't be the ugliest quilt I've ever made! [and I've made some doozies!!] Quiet, you friends back in NE!! I can hear you!

The Yellow Brick Road quilt uses 9 FQs. Well, I don't buy many FQs! I usually buy 1/3s - first thing I had to do is readjust the number of fabrics to use and what on earth I was supposed to cut! Oh heck - if the kid's coming this week you'd better start sewing!!! I laid out many blues, lights and light browns and whenever I didn't have the correct configurations - I cut more strips! By the way - I may have enough cut to make another kid's quilt for charity quilts!?!

Our condo was turned into a sweat shop! There was fabric, threads and working stations EVERYWHERE. My husband gamely kept adjusting the tv sound to keep ahead of the sewing noises! I watched more football this weekend than I had my whole life! I couldn't get away from it. Wouldn't you know it - too rainy for golf this weekend!

But I got into it and I like the quilt. I had an old patriotic 'beige-ing' - Stars and Stripes by Moda. Remember D? I threw it in, since this is election month!!! Even had enough for the back. This is a total stash quilt! No billfold was opened - batting, backing and binding included. I'm hand sewing the binding on tonight and as soon as it's out of the washer and dryer tomorrow - I'll post a picture.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Well, the soup was wonderful, but I'm using store-bought stock next time! I drained almost 2 cups of grease off the stock and ended up with less than I needed. PS - I didn't throw away the beef and veggies in the stock - I added them to the soup later!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Oops - I've been - hmmm, how can I say this? ---Lazy?? And of course, busy doing mostly nothing! Laying about reading, watching tivo, looking thru the catalogs that come everyday! We were up in Portland for 3 days last week babysitting Miss P off and on. She was an adorable pirate for Halloween and apparently got into the 'dress-up' mode because she had on quite the outfit the next day!!! Wings, hat, sunglasses and sock monkey apron! Cute as a button - 'nuff said!

I worked on the dreaded pink quilt yesterday. I think I calmed it down by adding alternate squares of pink - it doesn't look nearly as RABID to me - but I don't think I'm ever going to like it! Good thing I'm giving it away and it's going all the way to NY! But I just get the feeling that this one is going to haunt me! It will probably end up in a collection as an example of my work - ICK! Hmm, could I label it with someone else's name???

Today I'm making soup. As you know - I'm not really a cook-type person. Yes, I make dinner when forced to! LOL! DH is a much better cook than I am - and I'm always telling him that - hoping he will continue to cook for me! I DO have 5 or 10 really good dishes that I make. We both love soup and bought 2 new soup cookbooks for our first Oregon Winter. We hear there is alot of rain - more about weather later! SO-O-O, the cookbook I was looking thru had a "meaty minestrone" recipe that sounded good. It suggested that you make your own beef stock - doesn't that sound innocent!!! Well, this will be a WHOLE lot more expensive than Swanson's Beef Broth! 4 1/2 lbs of beef bones [$12] - who knew! 5 spices that I really didn't use before so left them in NE - [$20 - really!!! who knew that cloves were $12 a bottle!!! Weren't they cheap enough that you could cover an orange with them to make a Christmas decoration???] 1 lb of stew meat [$4] and assorted veggies - the stuff cooks for 3-4 hours. You take out the bones, strain it keep the liquid and then THROW AWAY the rest!!! Really??? I'm only at 2 hours of simmering now - then the soup takes another 2 hours of cooking. Boy, that cookbook that starts with Campbell's soups is looking a whole lot better about now!!! LOL! I'll let you know if we deem it worthy of all this! BUT I am ridiculously proud of the fact that I'm making my own stock! Who knew I could do this??

If we have started 'winter' here, things are looking up! It seems to be less grey than it was over the summer - a higher ceiling, maybe?? The skies are just spectacular and there is blue sky sometime during the day. Being retired - I can usually take advantage the break in the weather.

At water aerobics here - we are in a wonderful pool with 25 foot window walls. Excellent to keep an eye on the weather during class! We were there a little over an hour yesterday - here's what we saw: grey overcast skies; hmmm, it's clearing; awesome bright white towering clouds going by; flocks of seagulls soaring around; grey overcast skies; pouring rain mixed with a little sleet(!); oops - clearing again, rain stops. And I thought the weather changed fast in NE!